Mozambique’s wallets: 7.7% of first-half transactions paid for services, 1.5% of value

August 31, 2026

Wordless fine-line illustration: A market stall with a mobile-phone agent's umbrella beside a quiet shop counter whose card terminal sits unused, and a thin stream of coins and a thick stream of banknotes passing between the two

With 26.3 million e-money subscriptions against 6.7 million bank accounts, the useful number is what the accounts are used for.

Mozambique’s e-money wallets recorded 2,182 million transactions in the first half of 2026, and only 167.3 million of them, 7.7%, paid for a service. Those payments were worth MT21.7bn, 1.5% of the MT1.47tn that moved through the wallets, at an average of about MT129 each, according to the Banco de Moçambique (BdM) July statistical summary, the latest published before the end of August.

Transfers dominate instead: 1,163.2 million operations worth MT778.3bn, about 53% of the count and 53% of the value. The account totals suggest a payments economy. The usage mix describes a remittance and cash-handling economy, and the two readings call for different decisions by merchants, billers and banks.

26.3 million subscriptions, 6.7 million bank accounts

Subscription counts overstate users, and the use per subscription is the better gauge.

At June the BdM counts 26.34 million e-money subscriptions against 6.74 million bank accounts in meticais, held by men, women and joint or company holders. That is 3.9 wallets for every bank account. The BdM labels the e-money figure a proxy, the number of subscribers, so a person with two operators counts twice. The 2025 financial inclusion report, as 360 Mozambique summarised it, shows 1,313 e-money accounts per 1,000 adults against 337 for banks.

Spread the 2,182 million transactions over the subscriptions and the result is about 83 per subscription in six months, roughly 14 a month. That is our division, not a published ratio. It is a better yardstick for a merchant than the headline count, because it shows how often a wallet is actually opened.

What a wallet is used for

Cash in and cash out and person-to-person transfers make up nine-tenths of the activity.

Deposits were 549.8 million operations worth MT415.2bn, and withdrawals were 301.8 million worth MT259.6bn. Wallets therefore took in MT155.6bn more cash than they paid out. Transfers averaged about MT669 each, deposits MT755 and withdrawals MT860, against MT129 for a service payment.

The ticket sizes show the gap. A service payment is a small, repeated purchase such as airtime or a utility bill, and it is about six times smaller than a typical deposit. The use that moves money is the one that connects cash at one end with cash at the other.

The mechanism: agents are the till

The network was built around cash-in and cash-out points, not around merchants.

The Club of Mozambique reports 494,955 e-money agents in the second quarter, up 27,333 from 467,622 in the first. The same BdM tables show 3.70 million bank cards, of which only 87,363 are credit cards. In our reading, a wallet user meets cash at an agent and a transfer on a phone, while the card terminal on the shop counter is the rarer experience. Bank terminals are falling in number, and the e-money agent has replaced the bank branch as the access point.

Coverage is uneven. The BdM’s inclusion report, as relayed in an AIM story carried by Club of Mozambique, says Nampula, Cabo Delgado, Niassa and Zambézia remain poorly served, while Maputo city and province have the highest coverage.

What a business does with it

Sell into the 7.7%, and price for the gap between transfers and payments.

A retailer, utility or school that accepts wallet payments is selling into a slice that was 167.3 million transactions in six months, a small base. The way to enlarge it is to offer a payment where a customer now withdraws cash to pay: rent, school fees, supplier invoices, transport. Each avoided withdrawal removes a trip to an agent.

Banks face the mirror question: a customer who moves MT669 by transfer and pays MT129 for a service is not borrowing, saving or holding a card. The August figures arrive in the BdM’s September summary and will show whether the 7.7% share has moved. Set that as the line to beat.